The North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers are cutting bait on their popular youth event.

The Sequim-based fishing group’s Kids Fishing Day event at the Water Reclamation Demonstration Site near Carrie Blake Community Park has been canceled for 2018 after this spring’s increasingly warm weather made it unsafe for fish in the pond, angler group president Bob Keck announced this week.

“A test plant of a limited number of fish was made today (Monday, May 14) and a number of fish were lost due to high water temperatures,” Keck wrote to club members this week.

“With the weather forecast showing warm weather through the end of the week we are concerned about losing most of the fish that we would be planting,” Keck said regarding the event, scheduled for May 19.

“We are looking at options to re-schedule the fishing day in September or October after the water in the pond cools down.”

Dave Croonquist of the Puget Sound Anglers added, “We are disappointed after the enthusiasm we saw in the parade from the kids and their parents.”

The Puget Sound Anglers co-sponsors this event with Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the City of Sequim. The club pays to feed trout that are donated by Fish and Wildlife, while city staff maintains the pond. The trout are raised at the Hurd Creek hatchery and planted in the pond earlier in the week preceding the event.

Keck said city officials have installed a re-circulation pump that looks to have benefits for fish survival in the future. He also said the group is working with state officials to retain the fish which were to be used this month for a future Kids Fishing Day event.

The event, hosted by Sequim for the past 12 years, saw about 500 rainbow trout die in June of 2017 because of warmer than normal temperatures in the pond, David Garlington Sequim public works director said at a Sequim City Council meeting in 2017.

“The fishing pond in the reclaimed area wasn’t designed as a fishing pond, but an irrigation storage pond. Fish weren’t given any consideration whatsoever,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s not deep enough to stay cool when we get hot weather … It’s a great opportunity for kids to fish there. It was heartbreaking for everyone to bag up 500 fish.”

Leaders with the city, anglers and Fish and Wildlife explored moving fishing to the pond by the Sequim Dog Park.

Annually, the club puts in about 1,800 trout for the first weekend of Kids Fishing Day, the third Saturday of May, and then plants the rest soon thereafter, totaling about 3,000 fish.

For more about the club, event or closure, call Croonquist at 360-582-1370.

Anglers set May 17 meeting

Heath Heikkila, the Coastal Conservation Association’s Regional Fisheries Director, joins the North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers for the group’s meeting on Thursday, May 17, as the featured speaker.

The meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave.

Heikkila has nearly two decades of experience in working with regional natural resources, including time spent working as a policy advisor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where he focused on endangered salmon recovery efforts on the West Coast.

As a Regional Fisheries Director, he is intimately involved in fisheries advocacy issues from Olympia to Washington, D.C. He will be sharing more about his association’s efforts in Washington along with discussing how the organization works and how others can get more involved in fisheries issues. (For more information about the Coastal Conservation Association, visit www.ccawashington.org.)

The evening begins at 6:30 p.m. for viewing raffle prizes and fish stories. The featured speaker presentation starts at 7 p.m., followed by a business meeting that includes a financial report, government relations report, upcoming events discussions and fishing reports from members. Also on tap are refreshments, the popular raffle for fishing gear and a membership drawing (must be present to win). The public is welcome.

The club meets the third Thursday of each month at Trinity United Methodist Church.